


A Deo rex

by Mother_Hitton



Series: PoW [1]
Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 13:06:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mother_Hitton/pseuds/Mother_Hitton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Good intentions kill as bad deeds do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Deo rex

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for every incomprehensible things. English is not my language. I have translated this only thanks to help, patience and corrections of dear angelcakes19. But sometimes I did what I wanted. So, errors are all mine. 
> 
> IDW Infiltration AU (with elements of Cartoon G1, All Hail Megatron and maybe something else).
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * *

Optimus has no memories of the life of Optronix.  
It’s well known that those born from reformatting, even those who only received neural components from donors, suffer from the persistent presence of the old host. Phantom sensations, usually, or discordant and overlapping reminiscences. The shadow of a stubborn life, resistant to even the most ingenious elision algorithms. But none of them had ever been the Matrix’s host and this, he supposed, made the difference.  
What he knows of his old life he knows because he has learned, like everyone else, and the stories are not even consistent with each other. Some people say he was just a dock worker, others an archivist, others a security guard. He expects to hear tell, sooner or later, that Optronix was the twin brother of Megatron or a reformed Decepticon general and, as far as he is concerned, it cannot be excluded.  
All the others have something _first_. _First_ is a conceivable time, an existence beyond the war’s watershed that he was not given, continuity between what they were and what they are. All that he has is an impassable barrier, located between the death of Optronix and the birth of Optimus. He begins at that moment.  
Even the name is uncertain. Optronix, yes, but sometimes it’s Orion. He’s not even sure he was one person, not two, or three. Possible. It’s possible that he existed as both Optronix and Orion. The archivist and the worker. It’s possible that he has been other people of whom there remains not even a name. That were simply deleted, because they were less interesting, because they were useless. Because they were too many.  
Possible, yes.  
Sometimes he scours his databases, going methodically through currents of memory, looking for some alien thought, a few ghostly images, even just a feeling not cannibalized by the Thing he carries inside. Anything that is not Optimus, lost in the maze of his psyche.  
There is nothing.  
He does not even know how it was for his predecessors, because, despite a widespread belief, the Matrix does not keep within itself feelings or emotions or memories of something experienced as an individual.  
So, all that remained to him was only that fragmented and ambiguous information. And rumors that soon after his creation had already become the stuff of legend.  
He suspected that such entries have been encouraged on purpose, many of them even invented, by who created him, and they have on purpose eliminated any trace of his previous life, of everything that could transform a Prime into something more like a man and further away from an icon.  
It’s right. An employee cannot be the voice of God and the leader of a world.

The history of the previous existences of Primes is not preserved and by law, tradition and courtesy, no one ever questioned them, no one calls them by different names, no one ever dared to suggest that there were other lives and those lives have been sacrificed to allow them to be.  
Although, to him, once a man had dared to ask. A question indistinguishable from a statement, made in coarse, ungainly hybrid code that represented the language shared by the two sides. In front of everyone, among outraged amazement and coarse laughter.

_Remember the priests of your Celestial Temple, when they brought you in front of the Matrix and had torn you apart? Remember how it is to be truly alive? Or do you, instead, try to forget?  
Comforted with the name they gave you. It does not change the fact that you’re a carcass recycled and revived to the benefit of a parasite._

But Megatron was wrong if he was referring to some morbid interest in his death, and whatever there was in the time of the transaction, if ever there was. Optimus does not harbor any curiosity about death. He knows it too well, because he’s intrigued by it.  
It’s that, often, he tries to imagine himself into a life of peace and he’s unable to.  
He has seen countless forms of war and countless forms of peace, as many as inhabited the planets he visited. It’s not difficult to imagine a state of peace. What is impossible is to connect that state to himself.  
For him, peace is only a temporary condition, a momentary pause in the conflict, an interval of tranquility between two battles. A good time to prepare for a new confrontation. But peace as the ordinary state of existence is an exotic and bizarre situation, something observable as a curious natural phenomenon, something he’s unable to experience in person.  
Peace is like flying. Something that Optimus can admire, envy and may even want, but that does not belong to him. Something that, if attempted, would turn only into a distorted and destructive copy. Something that, if he insists to own, would only make him crash.  
Optimus knows that there will not be a life without war, for him. There cannot because he exists to fight, born as a result of the war only to make war. Driving the war. A war directed at those who have betrayed their very nature.  
To deny it would be to become the very thing against which he was created, and in that moment, peace would crumble again and, this time, the traitor would be him.  
For this he searches for the memories of Optronix. Or of Orion. Or of both.  
Because Optimus cannot have anything over the war, but Optronix, maybe, yes. 

“We still have time to turn around and go back to where we came from. This world is not a point of strategic importance.” Ratchet’s voice is so high that it, probably, was heard throughout the ship.

For sure, it’s sufficient to bring the main cognitive level of Optimus to the present, to those around him and to the thing responsible for the anger of Ratchet. A planet covered by water, with a moon in proportion so great as to cause it to be, more than anything else, a system of twin planets, rather than a world with its satellite.  
A new world. The umpteenth new world that would soon become the old world. One of the many old worlds in the sequence of worlds sterilized that mark their way.  
This is his past. A series of identical planets distinguished only by the number of corpses left on their surfaces. 

“What is your problem, Ratchet?” Snorts Ironhide, exasperated by the continued opposition from the medic.  
“People die. A fundamental problem for me.”  
“In war, people die.”  
“To die for a meaningless mine? When there are so many?”  
Ironhide scratched the table’s surface and the sound calls everyone’s attention to the ostensibly unsheathed claws.  
“It became different from the others the moment in which Megatron decided to land here. The planet should have some importance.”

It’s a statement that could make Prowl, this; logical and reasonable. The effect of a cause.  
Optimus is not so sure. It might just be a case. The hapless planet may have been chosen by opening the stellar maps blindly, or because Megatron has lost a bet, or someone in the Decepticon temperamental staff decided that he liked the configuration of the continental masses.  
For a long time he had learned not to be surprised by the actions of Megatron, but he just could not figure it out. Sometimes he has the impression that his enemy acted without the slightest premeditation, moving accidentally. It is not a pleasant consideration, since this is the man who has brought down their world under the weight of its own mistakes. It may mean that the universe is really meaningless. Or that their civilization was meaningless, born by chance and fell by accident.  
In the most optimistic of assumptions, Megatron is being foolish, but, in this case, a madman was able to break a people.  
Still, not a pleasant prospect.  
At present, however, Megatron and his reasons, or lack of such, could wait. It’s evident that he decided to occupy the planet and there is not much they can do to change his mind or stop him.  
Ratchet is a much more immediate problem.  
Jazz observed with a half expression of expectation, waiting for the inevitable slaughter. Mirage is bored. Red Alert does not intervene, but, on the other hand, never intervenes when there is an enemy, real or perceived, on which to pour his paranoia.  
Ironhide has made a fatal mistake when he decided to oppose the medic and it is a mistake that Ratchet intends to use as he pleases.

“Megatron is here as he was the previous planet and the previous one again. Somewhere, he has to be.”  
“Now, he’s here.” Repeats Ironhide. For him it’s a sufficient explanation.  
“Yes, he’s here. According to the Decepticons’ acquisition protocols, it means that they already have a foothold on the planet and we have always lost it arriving at this stage of employment. And I don’t even know why I have to say it to you. I’m beginning to think I’m the only one who knows his job. ”  
The exoskeleton of Ironhide darkens nearly to absorb any light, while the lines of photophores blaze long-wavelength.  
“Ratchet, you’re pushing the limits.”

Ratchet discovers his teeth, ignoring the implicit order of silence.  
He doesn’t have as high a rank in the army. Technically, he’s not even that of an officer, but the war’s medics act with the privileges that their function allows. It’s not wise to alienate those who, sooner or later, will tighten the threads of your life and Ratchet has never been so thoughtless as not to take advantage of his immunity.

“What limits? Those of a frontier that we draw from time to time? You are a warrior, my friend, but thinking about it, what a stupid kind of war you fight. Stupid from the beginning, stupid as it’s conducted... It’s not even a war. It’s a game of tag. We lose? What? A world like thousands of others, neither more nor less important than any other. We win? We’ll leave soon behind the conquered territory, because we don’t care anything about it. For us, it’s not to any advantage, unless we strip it of each resource and use them as energy stocks before leaving again. It ends in the same way, always. People die only to delay the final solution until next time. Any forthcoming time, except that of now.”  
Prowl intervenes before Ironhide has a chance to reply.  
“If I can interrupt, we should prepare procedures to counter potential attacks and first contact.” A pause, long enough to allow any objection, or to emphasize that no one dare to make one. “The temporal advantage of Megatron is not recoverable, unless route or maneuvering errors are made and I don’t rely on the probability of failure of a Decepticon pilot or navigator. He’ll arrive before us, I would not give him a way to orient and re-establish his position against any dissidents, before our arrival.” 

Optimus doubts that the interference is intended to save Ironhide from the dialectical clutches of Ratchet. Most likely, Prowl is just annoyed by the attitude of the medic, at least as much as the angry reaction of Ironhide. Never disturb Prowl with some meaningless and misleading emotional manifestation.  
What is unusual, if anything, is that he has severed contenders with the news of a necessity, not debating the subject of contention.  
More than once Prowl has proven to be uncomfortable in front of those behaviors he considers irrational, but now he’s neither confused nor uncomfortable. It’s not the misunderstanding that prompted him to take action to close the debate nor that he considers Ratchet’s arguments illogical.  
Unusual, yes, but Optimus has no other choice but to trust. The crystalline logic of Prowl is alien in its complexity. He can only assume that the strategist has considered more efficient interruption due to urgent need, rather than run the risk of giving to Ratchet pretext for further controversy.  
Anyway, his words have the force of an order that concludes the discussion, effectively excluding the proposal of Ratchet.

One by one, they all retire from the closed network formed by the members of the meeting and the connection with the information system and leave the office. The moment Ratchet starts to get up, Optimus, with a nod, orders him to stay.  
Ironhide hesitated to launch the medic a quick suspicious look, before walking away.  
It’s not fear, but Ironhide doesn’t have a good relationship with anyone who contrasts him, whoever that is, and has a habit of not forgetting the insults, whatever is the contrast.  
Ironhide is a simple being, one of the simplest beings Optimus has ever met. And one of the most dangerous. There is too little room for maneuver in his frame of reference. Friends and foes, with a sharp boundary dividing them.  
An efficient solution for a fighter like him. Reducing the world to minimum terms decreases the reaction time when facing possible threats, because it eliminates the need for pausing and assessing wider fields of possibility.  
In his own way, Ironhide is as logical and rational as Prowl.

Now the only ones to remain in the room are he and Ratchet, Optimus also interrupts the flow of data on the planet which is their next destination. For the moment, he has all the information he needs. 

“Ratchet...”  
“Yes?”  
“When you disagree with me, tell me in private. Do not fight me back in front of the soldiers.”  
“You are infallible by definition, Optimus. Don’t try to convince yourself to be really so, not to the point of being beyond criticism.”  
“You are talking to a Prime.”  
“I’m talking to a man. I know. I’ve seen what you have inside, I put my hands on what you have inside, and believe me, it’s not enough to make a difference for me.”  
“So, _what_ makes a difference to you? Something has to be, or you wouldn’t follow me.” 

Ratchet radiated anger. Anger and desire for conflict. Colours and lights intensifying and spectral cromatic patterns of curved lines followed each other on his shell, flowing in the uniform white of a medic. Consequently, also Optimus’ level of aggressiveness rose.  
The foregoing discussion was only the prelude to a battle that Ratchet is determined to win and Optimus is not going to lose. He could have forbidden Ratchet to attend the meeting, but that action would have been just removed the problem temporarily from view and postponed the fight.  
Ratchet had already expressed this stubborn opposition in the past, with only a few changes, minor elements of expression in a plot already written and recited several times, each time more sharply, and the medic is a special enemy. One that must be subdued, not torn down, and those are more difficult than kill. 

“You have to understand one thing, Ratchet. Equality is chaos. Everyone has a role. To reject it is to cause confusion and confusion only generates instability. Power is not shareable and cannot be switched. We cannot share the duties and we are not interchangeable because we are not the same, you and I, and I am infallible. At the very least, I am less fallible than anyone else. Which, in practice, means the same thing.”  
“You’d have to say to those who kill by your own decisions. Then why do not you address this to everyone that criticizes you?”  
“Decepticons are convinced of the fundamental equality of everyone. Or rather, they believe that diversity is something to be conquered with individual abilities, regardless of who you are and what you are, of role or programming. Even the same Megatron is not exempt from this philosophy and retains the power proving himself almost daily. Every decision he takes, he must impose it. He can do so by conviction, by reason, by force. What matters is that his men know that he’s not infallible. He himself knows he doesn’t have necessarily reason, that reason is simply that of the person that is able to prevail, not the real one. Thus, in their ranks there is always a resistance to follow his orders. In fact, to follow everyone’s orders, because each individual is intimately convinced that everyone is equal, everyone makes mistakes, everyone can make wrong choices, everyone can decide better than those who order. Inside them there is always the doubt. The chain of command is unstable, subject to internal attacks. Even in the best case, they spend their time in ongoing conflicts only to reaffirm hierarchies already established. It’s their main weakness. Basically, it’s our only advantage, which counteracts the forces at play, in spite of their strategic and individual superiority. This is because Megatron is convinced of having to prove himself to be the strongest, not to be the one making the right decisions.”  
“Don’t turn around the issue. You know I don’t tolerate that.”  
“Ratchet, there’s only one man as important as the Matrix Bearer and, when it comes to the showdown, it’s more interesting to have around a healer than an icon. So, your voice has more power than anyone’s. In some cases, even mine, and this cannot be. It cannot even have the same weight as mine. The objections of the others are just words; yours become the preliminary of a fracture. Do you understand?”  
“I see. You cannot afford to be believed as less than infallible, Prime.”  
“What I believe is not in question. What I cannot afford is that others believe me less than infallible.”  
“The solution, therefore, is not to argue with you.”  
“No. It’s not to give me a reason to justify my actions. A justification is confirmation of insecurity, uncertainty is an imperfection. Ratchet, we don’t fight aliens, we don’t fight an external enemy. We fight our own brothers. We are the same, them and us.” 

Optimus feels Ratchet tense at that statement, sufficient to earn at least a dangerous heresy accusation or suspected sympathy for the enemy, but he’s a Prime and there are things that a Prime can afford to do and say. 

“We are the same, despite the claims of propaganda.” Insists Optimus “What they have done, we can do too. The enemy’s seed is within ourselves, the enemy is us. If we begin to doubt, _we_ become _them_.”  
“And your _‘We cannot reject our role’_ , where does that go?”  
“There is a difference between _‘must not’_ and _‘cannot’_ , and it’s not a semantic difference.”

Ratchet’s intimate energy field is shaken by a hurricane of inharmonic waves and sharp cusps. The medic carries his anger as a precious treasure, irreplaceable and heavy. It’s his way of hiding the pain that he can’t unburden himself of. A bubble of anger that separates him from the outside world. That, as long as it exists, allows him to ignore fear and pain. Coarse, but despite his intelligence and wit, in many ways Ratchet is like Ironhide, a creature that meets basic needs, acting on brutal impulses. 

The medic touches the bulkhead in a vague gesture towards the outside, to a point still outside the perceptive capacity of both. A useless gesture. Incomprehensible, also, if Optimus had not learned to decipher it, but the sense of touch is unique to Ratchet, he has acquired a gesture based on it, even when there is nothing concrete to touch.

“Another inhabited world, Optimus. They exist too, don’t forget. We’re going to involve them in our war once again. We use them as cannon fodder. We tie them to us; push them to attack an enemy who destroy them.”  
“If a planet has attracted the Decepticons’ attention, that planet is captured, whatever we do. We cannot worsen their situation. If anything, our intervention could help them and we need every possible diplomatic relation with those who might be antagonistic forces against the Decepticons.”  
“Antagonistic forces, yes. Let’s call them that. It’s easier.” Still rage, roaring and caustic and red like rain, “And Decepticons sweep away all possible antagonistic forces before they become a real threat to them.”  
“This does not mean that they always succeed. Ratchet, it’s possible that, sooner or later, we’ll find a civilization able to fight them, or even stop them.”

 _Ragerageragerage_  
Despair.

“Great. So, it’s okay because it’s made for a worthy purpose. You’ve got your right war that if you don’t win it will be the end of the universe. I’ve heard all the politicians of all the worlds I know say the same thing or some imaginative variation of this concept, against their rivals. I heard Megatron say the same thing, with almost the same words. Spare me the recitation of the greater good, Prime. We have done many revolting things, me, you, everyone involved in this war, but at least leave alone the claim of reluctant hero, because it’s really disgusting. Good intentions kill as bad deeds do.”

_When you’re dealing with death every day, you have to learn to fight it at all costs, learn to want to avoid it. Learn that when you are unable to, when you cannot, when you cause a death to prevent another, even one in exchange for a thousand, then you have lost and there is no result that could make it less of a defeat. You must learn to hate death, because the alternative is to fall in love with it._

Ratchet said it himself, enough worlds ago to have forgotten how many dead separate them from that day.  
Understandable speech from a healer’s point of view. From Optimus’ point of view, is a way of ensuring his own defeat.  
That is the problem. Their friendship hides an unbridgeable gap.  
Ratchet can only lose in such a life, and Optimus cannot exist in a different life. Not if he doesn’t find Optronix’s memories, or Orion’s. Not until he’s himself. 

“If the result doesn’t change, we might as well have them, these good intentions.”  
“To save our conscience?”  
“If you like to believe so. But most of us don’t need it. They fight out of conviction.”  
“Most of us do not even think because we fight. They do it because that’s all they are able to do. They hate enemies they don’t know, they are hated by people who do not know them, every loss only increases their hatred until it’s all that remains of them.”  
“A fortiori, give them a reason that’s not only hatred and apathy. Ratchet, there are worse things than falling in love with death. Becoming indifferent from it. I am the thing that stands between them and becoming killers only because they are convinced that killing is the normal state of existence.”

Ratchet seems undecided whether to leave the room to go cool off somewhere or present a more physical demonstration of his disappointment.  
In the end, it’s neither one nor the other.

“You cannot order me to believe, Optimus. At the very least, you cannot force me to obey that order. Otherwise, this whole conversation would not make sense. I myself cannot force me to believe.”  
“Then, learn to pretend better than you do now and give me a reason.”  
“A compromise, Prime? From you?”  
“Ratchet, we speak clearly. I would prefer you to have true faith in me, but in any case, I need your support. Do you want to call it a compromise? As you wish. But if you’re disagreeing with me, if only because you are angry with my decisions and you don’t want to be silent or to ignore it, or wait until we are alone, then yell, insult, throw me the office, give me a fight, also in front of everyone.”  
“This would not ruin your credibility?”  
“At most, it would ruin yours. They would think that you are nervous or, as so clearly exposed by Ironhide, you are overreacting.”  
“That would be acceptable.”  
“Of course, the final decision is yours. You could just shut up and spare yourself any embarrassment. But, anyway, yes. That would be acceptable. When you are dying, you don’t worry about the temperament of those stopping your blood loss. My role requires unconditional trust by those who follow me. Yours, however, requires only one shot meets its target.”  
“I’m lucky. Those never fail. I don’t run the risk of being unemployed.”  
“What would you do? Come on, Ratchet. Make your proposal, rather than limit yourself to contest those of others.”  
“I would return home.” The response is immediate, without any hesitation, as if Ratchet is giving voice to something that he never stops thinking.  
“So, just go home?”  
“We are always busy jumping from one planet to another, in this kind of hunting without end, remember that we have a world and people that we left behind? We could take advantage of the absence of Megatron back on Cybertron and try to reconquer it, rather.”  
“Cybertron is very well defended and we certainly cannot put it under siege. But let us assume us able to win back our world. What then? We deliver the rest of space into Decepticons’ hands, leave them all the time and resources to prepare at their convenience while we confine ourselves on only one planet, awaiting the return of a fleet that will wipe us out once and for all. Remember that we have a quite clear strategic inferiority. The Decepticon have on their side the vast majority of the air and space forces. Who controls the skies controls the war. They can afford to maintain a planetary position with reasonable confidence, we don’t. The only thing we can do is wear them down working on divergent lines.”  
“Then let’s do it seriously. Decepticons don’t know how to move without Megatron and perhaps a handful of officers. Send someone out to get rid of them, instead of murdering some employee or some technical worker happening to be working on the wrong thing at the wrong time. They disintegrate into a number of factions at war with each other.”  
“Prowl spends a lot of time extrapolating projections of events. His only certainty is getting rid of the main players would introduce uncontrolled variables in the balance. With all their divisions, in one thing Decepticons are united and inflexible. Their hatred towards us. Kill Megatron or some other prominent personalities, not in open conflict, but by an assassin and we confirm the most common accusation against us, that we are hypocrites and cowardly despots. We create martyrs. Just what they need to put aside most of their internal strife. Decepticons don’t believe in any god, but they believe in men and they have turned exalting the individual into a science. Many fighters are considered by their people real epic heroes. Murder them and we would face not only one force that we know and we know how far it goes, but a plethora of unpredictable tribes, clans, lineages and warlords in possession of weapons of empires that, despite their mutual enmity, still pursue a common goal. To win over us. And remember the Decepticon meaning of victory. Total destruction of the enemy, now and in the future. We then take into account the neutrals, many of which are not neutral as we like to believe or hope. Eventually, Megatron is not irreplaceable to Decepticon. At the moment, more than anything, he’s for us.”  
“You’re telling me that there is no way to end the war.”  
“Not under the current conditions. We work to change these conditions. Fragmenting the Decepticon nation is one of our goals, but not because of the death of Megatron or his officers. On the contrary, with them present. Ideally, because of them, due to incapacity or friction.”  
“If only it worked. Too bad that we have gone on like this almost from the beginning. It always ends the same way and all we can do is give them trouble.”  
“Whether you like it or not, for us this is the less destructive course of action. Ratchet, you are missing out on a topic you know very well, looking for the most immediate solution to avoid now, here, the shedding of blood.”  
The medic hissed.  
“What are you accusing me of?” On his exoskeleton, flashing unaware lines of dark infrared, manifestation of anger on the verge of breaking loose, but Ratchet never shows extreme aggression with them. Thus, only manages to poison himself.  
“Optimus, what are you accusing me of? To do my job?”  
“You and Ironhide do nothing but bite at each other’s throats, but you are identical. For you two, everything is a personal attack.”  
“Tell me it’s not.”  
“War doesn’t begin and end here, Ratchet. There are other planets, other clashes. Other people. You ignore them to cry for a very small corner of space. Mine is not an accusation, it’s a fact.”

 _ **[I didn’t choose!]**_

Ratchet used a code and a frequency of private communication, the more exposed, more spontaneous language than those to which they both have access.  
In spite of himself, Optimus shivered at the impact of feelings that permeate the claim.  
Envy, regret, regret.  
Indignation.  
Rebellion.  
It’s something well known. Something enemy.

“None of us chose what to be. If the choice had been yours, would you have been any different?”  
“How should I know? I have been created to be a medic. Thinking as a medic, acting as a medic. I don’t know anything else, I don’t even know my first name, they erased it when they attributed me this one. I’m trapped in my being a medic. How do I know if it would have been _my_ choice?” 

Ratchet at least remembers a life, remembers a world. The loss of only a name is a very small thing.

“You’re here; this is a choice, your choice. Many of your kind have taken refuge in the depths of neutrality. You fight.”  
“I don’t fight. I just try to make up for what you do. I have no real purpose, Optimus, I can do nothing but run behind you without ever advancing a step. At best, I cannot lose ground.”  
“It’s still a choice, whether you like it or not. And it is your answer. Now tell me one thing. Is it for those who will die, or because they will soon have a name and a face, and this is too difficult to deal with?”  
This time Optimus is seriously convinced that the medic will hit him with... anything he grabs and feels that victory is near.  
“Do you believe that there would be difference? Anyway, the dead will be dead.”  
“There is a difference also among the dead, Ratchet. Probably the biggest difference is between them. Who is important that dies and who is less important. We would not have this conversation; you would not be here either, with no difference. You realize that every time you go into the medbay, when you choose who to lend your aid, there is a difference. Or you could not do what you do.”  
“Don’t dare think that I...”  
Optimus interrupts him before the tirade becomes excessive and out of control.  
“This pacifism that you preach, these scruples that you occasionally raise, usually always before a new confrontation, are just your ways to ensure that others kill for you. You are here and if you claim to not have reasons, then what makes the difference is only your whim. For this same whim, now you pretend to retire? You will not save everyone, in any way. Combat, desert, even change alignment... Someone will die anyway and someone will die because of you, by your hand or at the hands of someone driven by your actions, or by your absence.”

Ratchet pales, his personal energy field is flattened in slow and sluggish long waves and now, without his shield, he’s vulnerable in front of evidence he cannot refute.  
The enemies tell stories of Ratchet, at least as many as Autobots tell about the opponents’ medics, and the reputation of none of them is undeserved. In the end, the healer’s program provides the opportunity to put an end to life, not only to preserve it.  
But Ratchet doesn’t have a long-term perspective, his conditioning binding him to present. Saving lives, at all costs. The lives of those in front of him. Those he sees, those he hears, those who are here _now_ , they blind him to every other consideration.  
The reality compels him into a condition incompatible with his programming and he has not yet learned to not feel guilty, especially because the guilt is not enough to stop him, when it’s needed. Conflicting directives collide in his decision-making processors and that flawed, paradoxical, unrealistic, program becomes a monster torturing his own owner.  
This marks the end of the conflict. Ratchet lets his anger dissolve and what remains is only bare defeat in a battle where he never had one hope to triumph.  
Optimus relaxes, enjoying the lapping frequencies of surrender.  
It’s only a temporary victory. Sooner or later, they will discuss the same things that have been discussed today. They will talk of things already said, of things they already know, of things they are already convinced of. It has already happened, over and over again, and it will happen again.  
Ratchet is aware of the reality in which he is trapped. Only, now and then, he needs someone to confirm that there is no escape, someone who forces him into that life.  
It’s never definitive and cannot be definitive, but, sometimes, advancing step by step but not getting anywhere is all you can do.

Ratchet opens a connection with the information system, without remembering, or perhaps without bothering, to protect the connection.  
Intrigued, Optimus accesses in the terminal in turn and plunges into the flow of information directed to the medic.  
Done so, without invitation, without being connected to an intentional network of discussion, is a gross indiscretion and a guilty action, but he’s certain that, at this moment, Ratchet will not take care to rudeness.  
He expects to find the medic intent on wallowing in nostalgic reproductions of their world - a world that has never been _his_ , not as it had been _theirs_ \- instead he’s assimilating data of the planet on which they will drop soon. This is not particularly surprising. It’s something that Ratchet often does, wanting to know as much as possible; not about the next battlefield, but the next _world_.  
He never asked, but suspected that his old friend retained memories of all the planets they visited, of the people who lived there. It seemed appropriate behavior for him.

When Ratchet speaks again, his voice has been impoverished to the fundamental frequency without harmonics. On him, there are only the unchangeable colors identifying his function.

“I’d like to be part of the initial team.”  
“As you wish. You and Prowl.”  
“Please, not him.”  
“You and Prowl. Or Prowl and someone else.”

Ratchet nods without further discussion, realizing that this is not a decision up for debate.  
Optimus can allow him to be the first to set foot on the planet and start the procedures to hinder the acquisition of it by the enemy. For the umpteenth time, he lets him try to save a world and its inhabitants. He allows him any other thing that can help him to find a minimum of peace with himself. And that anger that is not gone, only repressed, seething, waiting, that without a way out would corrupt like a festering wound, will be vented in battle.  
But Prowl will be present to counteract any self-destructive tendency and correct any risky actions for their operations.

“If Megatron should come to ask for the end of the war, you would kill him.”  
Ratchet’s statement is so unexpected that, for once, Optimus is taken by surprise.  
“To be honest, I cannot imagine him doing such a thing.”  
The medic goes on as if he had not heard.  
“Thank you for the time you gave me. It was not necessary. I cannot threaten you in any way, no matter what I say or do. Faith in you is well cemented in the belief of all and if anyone doubts... even then don’t worry. You cling to power as Megatron does. The difference is that he defends it by gunfire, you with a dogma. But you’re better than him. It’s difficult to see what you do and it’s terribly difficult to oppose you without believing it’s a mistake. You no longer even give reasons for your actions. Whatever you do, others are looking for ways to adapt and this, in the end, makes you really infallible. I was wrong to not believe you.” 

Honestly, Optimus doesn’t know what to say. Nothing, presumably, is the best choice. Nothing and to allow Ratchet to talk.

“You don’t want others to think that war is the only way to live, Optimus, but it is, at least it is for you, and you’ll kill anyone who can stop it. You could do it in front of everyone and they would believe you to be right, because you’re infallible. You don’t look for a victory. You want only a new battlefield.”


End file.
